Born in London, John Hampden was the eldest son of William Hampden, a Puritan landowner with estates in Buckinghamshire and Middlesex. His mother, Elizabeth, was Oliver Cromwell's aunt. John Hampden inherited his family's estates while still an infant, on the death of his father in 1597. His subsequent wardship resulted in a furious quarrel and extensive litigation between his mother and his father's cousin WIlliam Hampden of Ennington that continued until at least 1604. John was educated at Thame School, Oxfordshire, then Magdalen College, Oxford (1610) and the Inner Temple (1613). In 1619, he married Elizabeth Symeon (d.1634), an heiress of Pyrton, Oxfordshire, with whom he had ten children. His second marriage, to Letitia Knollys (d.1666), widow of Sir Thomas Vachell, took place in 1640 and was childless.
Hampden sat as MP for Grampound, Cornwall in the Parliament of 1621 during the reign of James I, then as MP for Wendover, Buckinghamshire, in the first three Parliaments of the reign of Charles I. Like other Puritan country gentlemen, Hampden was critical of the Duke of Buckingham's influence on both King James and King Charles, and suspicious of Catholic influence at court. He became associated with the opposition Parliamentarians led by Sir John Eliot and the Puritan magnate Lord Saye and Sele.
In 1627, Hampden refused to pay the forced loan demanded by King Charles, stating that the loans were illegal and a violation of Magna Carta. Like others who refused to pay, he was imprisoned, first in the grim Gatehouse prison at Westminster, then under milder conditions in Hampshire. In March 1628, King Charles was obliged to call another Parliament following the Duke of Buckingham's disastrous and expensive expedition in support of the Huguenots of La Rochelle. Hampden and the other prisoners were released, but Parliament refused to vote funds until the King gave his consent to the Petition of Right, which stated that collection of taxes without the consent of Parliament was illegal.
After the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, Parliament switched its attack to the King's religious policy. The King regarded Parliament's intervention in religious matters as an affront to his authority and angrily dissolved Parliament in March 1629. The MPs Denzil Holles and Sir John Eliot were imprisoned. Eliot died in the Tower of London in 1632 and came to be regarded by Hampden and other Puritans as a Protestant martyr.
Hampden lived quietly on his country estates until 1637, when the King attempted to raise money by extending the tax of Ship Money which had traditionally been imposed on coastal towns in times of emergency to pay for naval defences. The King now tried to levy the tax on all the counties of England. When Hampden was required to pay Ship Money on his lands in Buckinghamshire, he refused to pay the full amount, maintaining that the tax was illegal. A test case was brought before 12 leading judges at the Court of Exchequer. Hampden's stand aroused widespread public interest, with the attorney-general Sir John Bankes and solicitor-general Sir Edward Littleton putting the case for the Crown, and Oliver St John and Robert Holborn defending Hampden. On 12 June 1638, the judges found for the Crown by a majority of seven to five. Although the verdict had gone against Hampden, it was regarded as a moral victory against arbitrary tyranny and brought both Hampden and Oliver St John to national prominence as defenders of liberty.
In April 1640, Hampden sat as MP for Buckinghamshire In the Short Parliament, where he collaborated with John Pym and other opposition MPs in attempting to overturn the Ship Money judgment. He was elected to the Long Parliament later that year and continued to work with Pym in opposing the King's perceived moves towards reintroducing Roman Catholic practices into the English church. Like other Puritans, Hampden sympathised with the opposition of the Scottish Covenanters to Archbishop Laud's Prayer Book, and in August 1641 he was one of the four parliamentary commissioners who accompanied King Charles on his visit to Scotland in the aftermath of the Bishops' Wars. Hampden was an early advocate of Pym's scheme for a Protestant alliance between Parliament and the Scots.
Hampden's greatest skill in the stormy sessions of the Long Parliament was as a tactician and moderator, often defusing volatile situations and winning over his opponents by subtle persuasion. After his support for the Grand Remonstrance of November 1641, he was one of the Five Members accused of treason whose arrest was demanded by the King in January 1642. Hampden declared that there were two conditions under which active resistance to the King became the duty of a good subject: an attack upon religion, and an attack upon the fundamental laws of the land. Hampden had no doubt that King Charles had fulfilled both these conditions.
On the outbreak of the First Civil War, Hampden was appointed to the Committee of Safety intended to direct Parliament's strategy. However, he also took an active role as colonel of the Greencoat regiment of foot that he raised from his Buckinghamshire estates. Hampden's regiment guarded the artillery train at the battle of Edgehill, halting Prince Rupert's charge and covering the retreat when the Earl of Essex withdrew towards Warwick. During the winter of 1642-3, Hampden championed the War Party in Parliament and opposed moves towards peace with the King on unfavourable terms. He was privately critical of the Earl of Essex for not striking boldly against the King's army after Edgehill or the stand-off at Turnham Green.
In the spring of 1643, Hampden's regiment took part in the siege of Reading, which surrendered to Essex on 27 April. Although his intention was to advance on the King's headquarters at Oxford, Essex became bogged down owing to fever in his army, a shortage of cavalry and no money to pay his troops. On 17 June, Prince Rupert mounted a lightning raid out of Oxford on Essex's outposts. Hampden rode in pursuit of Rupert with a troop of horse commanded by Sir Philip Stapleton, hoping to delay Rupert long enough for a larger force from Essex's main army to cut off his retreat. Rupert halted his troops at Chalgrove and ambushed the pursuing force. During the skirmish, Hampden received a mortal injury to the shoulder, possibly from his own pistol exploding, which shattered the bone and forced him to leave the field. He died from his wounds at Thame six days later.
Hampden was buried at the parish church of Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire, where a monument to his memory was erected by his great-grandson in 1743.
References:
C.H. Firth, John Hampden, DNB, 1890
Conrad Russell, John Hampden, Oxford DNB, 2004
C.V. Wedgwood, The King's Peace, 1955
Links:
John Hampden Society